Category Archives: adult-only

Published in the adult-only category

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Once again Shanna and I are heading off on an adventure! Thanks to a larger-than-expected tax return we can afford to go see my Sarah in Arizona again. This is very exciting because it means I can help Sarah unpack! I can be social *and* useful! That totally hits all my buttons of awesomeness. 😀 I looked into Amtrak instead of driving. The shortest trip would take 21 hours and Sarah would have to pick us up at 5am. That’s not a good way to make friends. 🙂 Definitely driving then.

I’ve gotten to see quite a few good friends recently. My life is pretty blessed.

Tired but happy

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Yesterday I had the privilege of watching Mollena win the International Ms. Leather contest. She was beautiful, poised, eloquent, and thought-provoking. I am biased, of course, but I really believe she was head and shoulders above the other contestants. (Although the cell phone fantasy was awesome.) I was really glad I kept my sorry, tired ass there long enough to see her win. I’m so proud of all the work she did. 🙂

Half-baked ideas on social interactions

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I would love a conversation about this and for people to post their own experiences/conflicting opinions. 🙂

I was reading a thread on MDC about whether it is ‘rude’ to correct misinformation in a social setting. Specifically a chick was talking about how there is another mother in her mommy group who routinely spouts ‘facts’ about dealing with babies that are often not-great to flat out dangerous. So far no one in the group is willing to contradict her publicly. The course of the thread involves many many women saying, “Well if it is truly dangerous I might try to very tactfully redirect, but I never contradict people because it will make the others in the group uncomfortable.”

That. That right there is why I (and I project onto most of my closer female friends) do not get along with groups of women. If you are presenting something as a fact then it is either true or not true and pointing out the truth should not be rude. I think this avoidance of conflict is basically unhealthy. I know that this is the ‘just get along’ community minded stuff that women are known for, but I don’t see it as positive. I see this conformity-or-else mindset as what encourages misogyny amongst women. Most of my female friends are pretty quick to say that they don’t like women. When I point out that they are saying that to a woman they say, “Well not you.” I think this is what is really being objected to. Women who buy into this mindset seem to believe that being smart, being right, being a ‘know it all’ is something to avoid at all costs. Why? Why in the world is this a good thing? Noah made a long argument about how long ago in communal settings when women were getting together to do the work of surviving there had to be more consensus and getting along, but that’s not particularly relevant today. Noah points out that people just don’t evolve that fast, but pshhhh forget that noise.

This made me think a lot harder about Alpha dynamics in social groups and particularly in a mommy-group I tried to join. I regularly challenged the sitting Alpha when I disagreed with her and as a result people didn’t talk to me much. I stopped going because I was sick of having to support the one chick or just shut up. Not my thing. I have a lot of Alpha-type tendencies but I am really ok with other people being Alpha if they know more, if we are at their house, if I’m just not in the mood. So I think I am not a ‘true’ Alpha in the sense that most people use the word. But I am bossy and pushy and opinionated and ok with seeing that things happen. I think that my refusal to accept a set social position (Alpha or otherwise) and my insistence that groups remain dynamic in this sense is a lot of what makes me suck in groups. I just don’t fit in because I cannot and will not accept any set defined position.

It’s interesting. What do you think?

Costuming pieces

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The wondrous noirem is abandoning these parts for a minimum of three years and as a result she has decided not to keep a lot of her dress up stuff. I currently have possession of stuff. There are a few Rennaissance pieces I intend to send towards the Pryankster crowd and some Dickens Fair garb as well as more standard dress up gowns. The size range is anywhere between 16 and 20ish if you corset well. The preference would be for these items to stay within friends because, as you all know, these clothes are expensive, time consuming, and a labor of love to create. If you think you might like some of the above, please contact me. (Be advised that a few of them need a small amount of work like sewing on buttons.)

Oh yeah, I’m pregnant

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It’s kind of interesting that I’m not talking about this pregnancy that much. I think that a portion of that is that the miscarriages instilled a sense of doom around being too attached to a pregnancy and that’s hard for me to think about. The worst ongoing symptom I have is acid stomach. I have only found one thing that seriously works for it and I can’t use it all the time but I’m glad I have something at all. Otherwise I’m ungainly and slow but doing alright. I’m already starting to have to be very careful how I sit/stand/twist because I’m feeling ‘oh that’s a muscle on the verge of hitting it’s end of range. right’ stuff. It’s festive! If I cook anything elaborate I can’t eat it. I can’t eat things too many times within a week or two period because I seem to have a smell memory that hits my gag reflex if I eat too repetitively. This is inconvenient but not the end of the world. All of a sudden in the last week or two tiny baby moved positions somehow and I can sleep through the night without getting up to pee. I don’t know how that worked out but I am Not Complaining. 🙂

I have less energy than I have when I am not pregnant but I think I hit my version of the mythical energetic second trimester. I get more done in an average day right now than I got done in an average week of Shanna’s pregnancy and I’ve had bursts where I’ve done HUGE projects and that was just never possible with her. I’m enjoying this. 🙂 I’m feeling incredibly stupid. My memory is in the crapper. I have to sit there and chant 5,000 times that I have to do something in a day or I forget. (Like picking Jenny up from the airport today. I am repeating over and over to myself that I have to leave the house at 1:30. I probably should be telling myself when I have to start getting ready or I’ll be late. Oy.) My normal punctuality is even harder than it is just with Shanna. I just move slowly. I have to stop and think about normal habitual actions. It’s not bad it’s just kind of inconvenient some days.

I keep meaning to have Noah take belly pictures. And I keep forgetting. See how this works out? At this point I am starting to outgrow my early maternity clothes (which is why I am doing my best to be quiet about my opinion of other people getting ‘huge’). I was at the grocery store last night and overheard two women talking about how one is due in Mid-June and the other is due in September. The September chick didn’t even look pregnant and the June chick looked how I look at 8 weeks. *sigh* I have gained approximately one pound but my belly is huge. Near as I can tell (angles are hard to judge and all) right now I am about as big as I was at 6 or 7 months last time. I’m 20 weeks so about 4.5 months. I have totally googled if it is possible to miss a twin with a 14 week ultrasound and the belief seems to be that it happens very very occasionally, but not likely. I just get fucking huge. OUTGROWING MATERNITY CLOTHES. Let me just say that again because it irritates me so much. It’s a good thing I’m going to be in the third trimester in the summer because I’m going to have to tie a sarong around my hips and wear a sports bra. Nothing else is going to get around my girth. 😛 It’s a good thing I don’t mind showing off my stretch marks. 😀

Uhhh… I think that’s about it. 🙂

What’s going on in my head lately.

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I haven’t been posting much of substance lately. This is largely because my laptop screen is dead and I am trapped in the office and Shanna only gives me short periods of time where she is ok with me being in here. Challenging. I can read in short bursts but I can’t write like that. Thus I have been posting lots of banal one or two sentence things on facebook.

What I am mulling over and trying to figure out how to talk/think about is the next step of processing abuse I am working on. I have spent almost the entirety of my adult life dealing with the large scale sexual assaults in my childhood. That took a lot of work. That was a big deal. What I have never really gotten around to is truly examining and processing all of the small scale abuse and day-in-day-out neglect and awful that I experienced. Thing is, now that I am doing this parenting gig that is seeming much more important. When I talk about not wanting to pass on the cycles of abuse I am not worried about sexually assaulting my kids. I’m just not. That’s just not something that will ever be much of a temptation for me. (I’m kind of repulsed by people who are two years younger than me.) What I need to worry about is how to not tear down her sense of self. I need to worry about how to create a positive atmosphere where Shanna (and TBD) are free to become any person they want to become without my baggage being dragged along behind them. As we are getting deeper into toddler-hood I am noticing more and more of my baggage that way and I need to deal with it now. This can’t wait. Part of the problem is, I don’t really have the time or mental space to work through this stuff. I have to create it. I can’t just float through and ignore this. This is mandatory.

I don’t think I am being a bad mother, but I can see bad habits starting to pop up. I am not ok with Shanna crying unless I can see a direct reason for it (that I approve of). That’s not ok. When Shanna expresses an opinion I don’t like (dude, she’s a toddler) I come down really fast and harder than necessary. I need to stop thinking/talking about how I would like to hit her when she is frustrating. That’s completely unacceptable. I’ve smacked her hand a couple of times out of pure reflex and I don’t like it, but I don’t feel like that is a huge problem long-term. What is a problem is that I talk about wanting to hit her pretty frequently. That’s unacceptable. That is using the threat of physical control and it’s not really much better than a judicious spanking occasionally for serious problems. It’s probably actually worse. It’s trying to instill fear. I have to stop. That’s not ok. I don’t want my daughter fearing me. At this point she doesn’t really understand and it’s very clear that she doesn’t fear me. I want it to stay that way.

Dubious gifts

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A lifetime of having an overly sensitive stomach has taught me the signs of vomiting long before I actually puke. It’s different from feeling nauseated which I can do for great lengths of time but there is no way I will actually puke. I generally have half an hour or so of notice that, “No really–it’s serious” so that I can go clean the toilet, pull my hair back, and just generally get settled. It’s a dubious gift but given that I almost always have issues with uhm problems from the other end when I am vomiting I’m awfully glad I get the opportunity to clean the toilet first.

Well, Debbie, you wanted me to post something. 😛

ETA: This is the suckiest part about being a stay at home mom. Unless I happen to get sick on the weekend I don’t really get a day off. 🙁

*crash*

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That sound is of me hitting the wall. I have been sleeping a lot. But the toll of physical exertion this week has seriously worn me out. I’m weepy and insecure. I’m glad I don’t have anything I have to do today or tonight and tomorrow should be mellow too. My lower back still hurts even though I got a really nice massage.

I sorta wish I could head down to Kiva tomorrow but it would require help with kiddo. Freakin kids.

Still working

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And I’m still happy about it. I have cheerfully ignored capnkjb so that I didn’t have to argue with her. 😀 I got far less done yesterday than I did on Monday but that’s really ok with me. Grocery shopping, mountains of laundry, ridiculous quantities of dishes… it’s still good progress. Today I continue the laundry. (When we get hand-me-downs and do towels/sheets at the same time it’s kind of a lot to deal with folding.) I’m also going to try and get to some of the other household cleaning stuff that is more intensive that I uhm haven’t done in months. My house will be fit for habitation soon! 🙂

My cousin’s boyfriend finished the gate and did most of the work on the AC unit and the kitchen fan yesterday. He couldn’t finish either because he needs more parts and it was getting late. Nevertheless I am quite pleased with him. 🙂 I think my to do list will actually get done! I’m so excited!

And in other news…

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It looks like I am buying a whole cow again. I am hoping that some of the reliable people from last time would like to buy some again. 🙂 I like having ethically raised meat in the house and this is by far the most cost effective way to do it. So if you were easy to deal with last time (and I probably let you know if I was pissy) please do contact me again. 🙂 So far I have 3/4 of a cow spoken for and they don’t really want you to buy it in that volume. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-100 lbs of meat I am happy to sell.

They raised the price a little and with the delivery fee the cost is $6.50/lb. this year. If you eat ethically raised meat normally it is FAR more expensive than that. This is potentially 1/4 of the price if you buy steaks at Whole Foods. My pickup date is June 1. 🙂

Exhaustion

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I am so tired I can barely move. Doing manual labor from 9:30 am yesterday till about 6 pm was really really hard on my body. But! I’m thrilled with the progress. I took (mostly) before pictures and I’m taking pictures today and I will take more pictures as I go of the Great Gardening Project of 2010. My cousin’s boyfriend laughed at me when I told him this project has been like 4 years in the making and we just haven’t gotten it done. He’s not the sort to ‘not get to’ projects. Which is why I like that I can pay him to come to my house and work. 😀 I will post pictures at some point.

A friend was supposed to bring me seeds this morning but she woke up not feeling well and canceled. Not so secretly I’m kind of glad I don’t have a complete full day of work. I woke up way too early (5:30) but started cat napping at 7:30 and really fell asleep by about 8:30 and didn’t wake up till 10. This is why my house is thoroughly toddler-proof so Shanna can’t get in too much trouble. 😛

My cousin and her boyfriend will be here around 1:30 and I have this ridiculously massive guilt complex about having them here working and not working myself so that is the end of my slack time today. I’m starting to feel slightly nervous about the semi-busy weekend we have planned. I think I will not stir from the couch on Friday in complete exhaustion. The cousin/boyfriend will be here today and tomorrow. Then my wonderful Taylor will be here Thursday and I will be getting a massage. I am going to need it so much. But Taylor likes to keep busy and do stuff around the house so I will probably save like one or two projects for him so he can feel all useful. I’ll see if there is anything that needs a tall person. 😛

I’m really really feeling the excitement and joy that comes from productivity this week. I receive such a strong boost of self confidence when I am productive. It’s kind of funny.

My life fucking rocks.

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Let me count the reasons to be grateful towards the universe right now:

-Mo is coming to visit me today and she is going to help me do work! The only yardwork I will request of her is helping me get those @#%^#@ white rocks up. Then we will come inside and she will help me give the house the scrub down it has needed for months. She loves me *that* much. <3 -My cousin and her boyfriend are coming over on Tuesday. Her boyfriend is one of the most hard working people I have ever met in my life. He's going to help me get the rest of the yard work stuff done. I am so excited about this I could float off into the universe. I think that, unexpectedly, I am actually going to get my yard to a place where I am happy with it for the first time since I’ve lived here. That is so cool I can barely stand it.
-Taylor is coming over on Thursday and he will give me a massage. I’m going to be a happy pile of goo after that. And he will help me put the gate up in the side yard to keep Shanna out of the compost. 😀
-I am pretty sure I will have ALL of my projects done by Thursday and I can’t express how happy that makes me. I feel constantly unsettled and anxiety around projects not being done. It really affects my day to day happiness in negative ways. But I will get caught up! Dude! SO EXCITED!!!
-We have a babysitter for 10 hours on Saturday and we get to party hop! This will be thrilling.
-Good stuff with my aunt. It’s nice to have someone in my family sit down and listen to me. I needed that so much. My soul feels lighter.
-I have this wonderful, amazing, fabulous husband and hanging out with him is so awesome. 🙂
-Shanna continues to grow more individualistically person-like daily. It is so much fun to spend time with her. I really love watching her charm the pants off everyone she spends time around. 🙂 She is such a poster-child for reproduction that I giggle when avowed ‘not into kids’ people are all over her like white on rice. 😀
-I’m really excited about the upcoming camping/wedding/festivity in May. I think it will be super fun and really great.
-I’ve been getting out and being more energetic and it feels really nice. I’m less slug-like. 🙂 I’m even doing better about doing cooking and eating slightly better. I’m being good to my body and the tiny baby and I’m glad I can do that more now.
-For today I feel like the burdens in my life are all in perfect balance and thus there is the lightness of a feather upon my back. I don’t get here often but I really cherish it when I do. Thank whoever is watching for reprieves from hard. 🙂

ETA: and I totally forgot to mention that Alex volunteered to make a play kitchen for Shanna for her birthday. Maybe I should be less down on my chosen family. They are totally rocking lately. 😀

Follow up

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It went well. Auntie made an effort to understand why I feel the way I feel and that’s a big deal. Her comments started out with, “I can’t see how occasional contact would possibly be a problem” and ended with, “Ok I can understand how lying like that is a problem.” That’s kind of a little tiny bit HUGE!! Dude. Strangely enough it is the constant lying (by my mom and sister) that she can really wrap her head around rather than the abuse. It was interesting to try to explain cycles of abuse to her. Once I was done I think she understood. At the very least she said she was willing to support me when I finished saying, “I don’t think they are bad people. I don’t think they engage in this behavior for malicious reasons. I think they were both abused so much for so long that they don’t understand how fucked up this behavior is and they are unwilling to admit they are abusers so they can never change.” She was very sad. I told her I am sad too. But I have to do this for my daughter. When I made the decision to have children I did it in full knowledge that I had to protect my children and ensure that they have a better than average shot at ending up happy, healthy people and that requires that I put up very strict boundaries around situations that will hurt them. She tried to say, “But if Shanna only sees them occasionally it won’t be as bad as it was for you.” I repeated what she said. I asked her how she feels about the fact that she can say, “as bad as it was for you” about my childhood. I asked her if she really feels Shanna deserves to be exposed to *any* bad.

It went very very well.

Feeling nervous.

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Today I am going to go see my auntie. I’m going to try to explain to her why I am going no contact with my sister and my mother again. I would like to maintain a relationship with her though, and that will require that she understand why I don’t want information about me passed on. It’s going to be very difficult for me to explain to her things about the cycle of abuse. She is not the most self-examining person in the world and she’s in her 70’s. Not usually a time of rapidly expanding ones horizons. I really love her though and I think she is a healthy, good person. She’s just… very much an enabler. She doesn’t want to get in the middle of things.

I’m nervous about this. I’m not sure she can understand and in my “I desperately want approval” sort of way if she just completely doesn’t get it I will feel invalidated. I shouldn’t need her understanding. I really shouldn’t. But I feel like I do anyhow. I’m somewhat tempted to bring the checklist of abusive behaviors. It wouldn’t help at all, so I won’t, but I feel so tempted.

I feel like I am fighting a current of whitewater rapids in standing up for myself. I desperately wish that my family was capable of acting like decent people.

Great visit!

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I took Shanna to her first visit with a new pediatrician today. We switched insurances again so I had to start hunting from scratch. I like this chick a lot. She did her PhD thesis on Intergenerational Abuse Issues. That seems like someone I should maybe hook in with. She is tolerant though not enthusiastic about the really delayed vaccines. She didn’t have a problem at all with us skipping flu and chicken pox entirely. w00t. She was very willing to talk about best practices on parenting stuff and at one point she said, “It is so nice to talk to a parent who is educated!” I’ll be buffing my nails for a while after that one. She asked me pointed questions about a lot of our parenting choices and how we are going to handle support network/social stuff given our homeschooling plans but said that all my answers were the best they could be. I appreciate that. It’s kind of sad how badly I need the rubber stamp of someone in charge in order to verify that my copious research is actually correct.

And then we went off to start DTaP. The shot technician started off emphasizing the pain and how it was awful but it will be over quick. I told him to stop and then I sat Shanna on the table and we had a little chat about how it will pinch and probably not be her favorite thing ever, but shots are to keep us healthy and they aren’t that bad. I asked her if she could be brave and hold still and she did perfectly. The shot guy was really surprised. He told me he’s never seen a kid her age be so calm and collected. That surprised me. Really? Every single kid freaks out? If it is that pervasive then maybe he should think about the fact that his approach isn’t exactly reassuring. 😛

And the doctor was impressed with her vocabulary, counting ability, and ability to sing (almost all) of the ABC song. 😀 Yay kiddo!

Things I’ll never say

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Dear Sissy,

You are persistently asking, nay demanding, that I give you information about my pregnancy and Shanna’s current progress. You state that I haven’t wanted to share, but you can’t wait any longer for the information. I’m not sure why it is that you believe you “can’t wait any longer” but you are going to wait quite a bit longer, potentially into forever. I’ll explain why.

In the past year you have made it very clear that if I want to have a relationship it involves “forgiving you” of anything you do at any point. You stated to our brother that “that’s how love works.” No, that is how abusive relationships work. I do not have any obligation whatsoever to forgive people constantly of repetitive hurtful behavior. In fact, it would be strongly to my detriment to do so. I would be showing my daughter that I believe I deserve the treatment you give me by continuing to engage with it and I am absolutely unwilling to present such a view to my daughter.

You came to my house, where you were my guest and I had gone through a great deal of effort on behalf of you and your family, and proceeded to lecture me about how you have to assume all of the matriarchal duties because “No one else is going to do it.” Essentially you were letting me know that regardless of what you actually -do- you are my superior. I reject this version of reality on every level. You will never be the matriarch of any group I am part of. The reason for this is very simple: I have no respect for you. If you nominate yourself the matriarch of our family I will leave. I would prefer having no family over having to tolerate the abuse you consider standard in familial relations.

I will never send you this letter because just like every other text book abuser you would find a way to feel victimized and declare that I need to apologize for being so terrible to you. I am not terrible for pointing out the specifics of your inappropriate behavior I am being honest. I am taking responsibility for my own mental health and well being. I am accepting the overwhelming responsibility of modeling healthy, appropriate relationships for my daughter. I am no longer engaged in the cycle of abuse and I refuse to step back into it.

Sincerely,
Your Adult Sister

+/-

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+ Someone should be arriving in about half an hour for a play date
+ Great dinner with friends last night. Shanna was an angel.
+ Lots and lots of productivity this morning. I’m impressed with myself.
+ Feeling energetic and social. It’s nice.

– My laptop screen is dead. It fell off a very high shelf. Not sure if we can replace it ourselves and can’t really afford sending it in for repairs. Fuck.
– Shanna destroys stuff almost as fast as I can clean. It’s hard to find my zen with this.
– Even when I’m very productive there is still more to do and more and more and more and… it gets overwhelming.

Feeling social

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So I’m kind of generically energetic and social feeling today. So I figured it was worth putting out to the interwebs that it would be awesome to have people come over tonight. I don’t know for sure what we would do and I really haven’t figured out what to feed people (take out probably..) but! I’m a sparkling conversationalist and all. 😀

So come over! I don’t have a set time on this but keep in mind that I’m not a real late night person. 🙂

Fuck that exercise shit

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Ok, so compared to blacksheep_lj it doesn’t count as exercise. Thank all that is holy that I do not have to be compared to her. 😀 Sunday I worked the resale even and spent four hours standing and walking rapidly on concrete. That is a much longer block than normal for that kind of activity for me. Monday I went out with a friend and spent a couple of hours walking in a park. Last night we walked to the park with Shanna and that’s a good 2.5 mile loop without all the walking back and forth we did to add on it. And we did that at the speed of toddler.

Holy crap I hurt. I don’t normally do that much walking in three days. I used to, but I haven’t this pregnancy. I feel like my uterus weighs about 30 lbs and it is sitting right on top of of a sharp pointy bit (my cervix). It fucking hurts when I stand right now. Ok, so on a scale of 1-10 it’s only like a 3, but I’m not used to that hurting! Whine! My back and knees are very sore and unhappy with me because basically all of this walking was on concrete.

But I never got winded even slightly. I didn’t have to take breaks to sit down much. Once last night, once at the park and those were both more because I needed to change angles for my hips more than anything else. My legs aren’t tired at all. Oh good. I’m not nearly so out of shape as I thought. 🙂 My joints are going to hate me right now no matter what I do. Three days in a row was probably overly ambitious but I really should start doing this at least three times a week. I don’t want to get as out of shape as I did when carrying Shanna. 🙂